


no good without you

by blanchtt



Category: Carol (2015)
Genre: Canon Timeline, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16256579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: She’s wracked with worry, but with the house on its way to being warmed up and nothing left for her to distract herself with, a large part of her finds the newfound silence unbearable.The past few days have been spent immersed in the close and easy company of Therese, and without her now everything seems dull, empty, lifeless.





	no good without you

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting a fic from late 2015 that I found. Please take with a grain of salt as I've tried not to edit anything. Hopefully this shows some growth as a writer :)

 

 

 

 

 

She arrives home to a cold and empty house. 

 

Carol walks through the hall, up the stairs, and to her room—no longer _their_ room—where she places her suitcase on her bed. She leaves it shut, though, no energy available, physical or emotional, to unpack. She steps out of her heels, rummages in the wardrobe for a spare robe, and pulls one on and ties the sash at her waist before she goes around the house starting the heaters, Florence conspicuously absent. And all for the better, really.

 

She’s wracked with worry, but with the house on its way to being warmed up and nothing left for her to distract herself with, a large part of her finds the newfound silence unbearable. The past few days have been spent immersed in the close and easy company of Therese—sharing the space of the car, of hotel rooms, and of beds; eating together at diners and restaurants, dinners and breakfasts and lunches; falling asleep to the feeling of Therese's fingertips tracing against her skin and waking to her tousled hair and sleepy face, close enough to kiss awake.

 

Without her now, everything seems dull, empty, lifeless.

 

But Carol heads toward the kitchen, forcing Therese from her mind, and picks up the phone. After a necessary call she throws herself together a pitiful dinner out of canned ingredients, nothing in the icebox still good after days away, and sleeps fitfully once she retires to bed, alone.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Fred, such a dear, has cleared his schedule for her, at least for an hour, and Carol makes sure to arrive punctually. He ushers her into his office, closes the door behind them and sits at his desk as she takes her place in one of the two chairs opposite him. Her back hardly touches the chair, though, perched stiff with nerves at the edge of her seat. 

 

“How bad is it?” she asks plainly, and Fred sighs, leafing through papers on his desk.

 

“Not good,” he says truthfully. "I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of it, but I’ve read the duplicate of the motion Jerry’s paralegal sent over, about how they’re going to submit certain _findings_ I’m sure I don’t have to list to you.” He leans forward, grabs a pad of paper and a pen and begins to write. “I’ve been wracking my brain since just before you got here and I think I know the angle I’ll go with this, but it’s not going to be easy.” He pauses for a moment to look at her, tapping the pen’s capped end against the pad of paper. “To be quite honest with you, who we land as the judge will make or break us.”

 

So it’s all up to what some man thinks of her? Is that no different from what is happening now, between she and Harge? Is she not entitled to her privacy? She purses her lips.

 

“And what laws have I broken, exactly?”

 

Fred pauses before speaking. “It’s not as clear-cut as what you did ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ Carol,” he explains, putting down his pen. “Law is… an interesting beast. For better or for worse, a lot of big-name cases rest on interpretation. It's about splitting hairs.” He’s treated her with nothing but politeness and respect—and he should for what she’s paying him—but he narrows his eyes, serious. “But on that topic, Carol, this is still gravely serious. You’re lucky the girl's not a minor.”

 

The message is clear—a defiant attitude won’t do her any good, and best to leave the law to him. Carol lets out a long breath, looking away.

 

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

 

“You? Make yourself look as good as possible.” Fred picks up his pen again, speaking and writing at the same time. “Keep your head down and your nose clean. No late-night drives, no going out, no friends over. I would advise you not to speak with Harge without me present.”

 

It feels depressingly like house arrest, to be sent back home with nothing to do except be left alone with her thoughts.

 

“And?” she asks. There must be _something_ else she can do. But Fred shakes his head.

 

“Other than keep up the image of the repentant wife, with this new tape on our hands there’s nothing else you can do. The rest is up to me, particularly once we’ve met with Jerry and Harge and we see how serious they are on submitting the— _ah_ —evidence.” He says the word with distaste. “Once we’ve done that I can start preparing and give you solid answers.”

 

“I see.” She stands, gathering her things. As much as she dislikes having to do it, it's a sensible plan. “Well, thank you for seeing me, Fred.”

 

"Of course, Carol."

 

He sees her off with a confident smile that is meant to quell her fears, but that is unfortunately not entirely convincing. 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

A singular, all-encompassing purpose has her ready to leave the house by nine. 

 

It had happened suddenly. Not two days later Harge had rung her, and she had picked it up thinking it might be Fred. But before she had had a chance to speak over him, to reiterate that anything he needed to tell her at this point could go through Fred, he had spoken over her.

 

“I have a proposition,” he had said bluntly.

 

She had heard him out and in the end had agreed, and agreed to dinner on the eighth at his parents’ as well because he’d promised Rindy would be there.

 

And so Carol gives herself another glance in the hall mirror, dressed to err on the conservative side, and makes her way out the door with her keys and purse. The drive to the city is dull, rainy; the car cold and deathly silent save for the tap of raindrops and the squeak of the windshield wipers batting from side to side periodically. 

 

She makes her way downtown to one of the nicer buildings, the brick and black paint of it showing how very much old and established and therefore respected it must be. She parks on the street with not too much difficulty, feeling too cagey for a dark and cramped garage the building offers, kills the engine, and sits for only a moment. 

 

“Now or never,” she says aloud. There is no one else to help her through this, so she must do it herself. Whether she waits in her car a minute or an hour, she’ll still have to show eventually. Carol grabs her purse off the passenger seat, opens her door, and wrangles the umbrella overhead to keep herself dry.

 

It’s almost calming to walk into the lobby and find that it looks like any other building. Nicely-furnished interior, dark tile, warm and quiet with no one else around. She leaves her dripping umbrella in the stand by the door and makes her way over to the directory near the elevators, takes in the names and the businesses, gold on black plates, as she slips out of her coat and drapes it over her arm.

 

And there it is—the name she needs, conspicuously absent of title amongst the accountants and esquires. She turns, reaches out and presses the button for the elevator, perhaps harder than necessary, but the impetus makes it all real, _present_ , and when the doors slide open she steps inside.

 

Let out onto the third floor she walks down the hallway to his office, opens the door and finds herself in a fairly large waiting room. She’s got things to do and had snapped up the first appointment, and so there is no one else present at the hour save for the receptionist, an older woman who smiles and that Carol greets with a smile back that feels as stiff as a board. How comical it is pretending that she's here for something as mundane as a touch of nerves, that nothing of any interest is on the line, that she's here willingly. 

 

The receptionist gets up, opens the door to the office and disappears. Alone, Carol puts her purse down on a chair, out of sorts. She doesn’t feel like sitting or reading or talking—a restless drive to get this over with has her start to pace, arms crossed, fingertips drumming on her elbow. But she hardly has time to walk the length of the room before the door opens again, before the receptionist is back and followed by a man, tallish and thin and dressed neatly.

 

“Mrs. Aird, I presume?” he says by way of greeting, holding out his hand.

 

 _Carol_ , she had always asked whenever she’d been introduced as such. _Just_   _Carol_. But with him she only smiles, tries to make it look sincere, and shakes his hand. “Yes. How do you do?”

 

“Fine, fine,” he says, and with a wave of his hand he ushers her into his office.

 

He takes a seat at his desk, and with no other furniture available Carol understands that she's to take her place on the couch. She sits primly, purse next to her and legs crossed, hands in her lap, and waits for him to begin. She is here to get Rindy back. She is calm. She is polite. Eager. Willing.

 

He picks up a file off his desk, opens the folder up and lays it down, reading through it briskly before he looks up. “Now, Mrs. Aird, I’d like very much for you to be able to trust me," he says, leaning forward. She nods. It's reasonable.

 

“Why wouldn’t I?”

 

He nods, pleased. “That’s good to hear, very good. Sometimes patients come from a place of hostility, and that makes everything take all the longer.”

 

She feels her smile waver and wonders if she only imagines the words to be threatening, or if he means to insinuate it. “I am here for a reason, Dr. Hollman,” she agrees pleasantly, though she’d be willing to bet their reasons don’t entirely match up. 

 

He nods, settling back in his chair. “Alright. I think we’re off to a good start. I also think we should make this worth your time and get right down to business, don’t you?” He opens a drawer in his desk, takes out a pen and draws the file closer to himself, poised to write in the margins, she imagines. “I’m sure you’re aware of the seriousness of the issue and so I won’t mince words, Mrs. Aird. I understand you're here to discuss an alarming pattern of homosexual tendencies.”

 

To have such a beautiful thing examined by someone else is the height of violation, but she can cling to her privacy no longer. But to, with two words, have what she and Therese had shared vivisected and notated and reported on, for all and sundry to see; to be reduced to such a beastly expression? Carol feels her stomach begin to ache and reaches into her bag. “Do you mind?” she asks as she opens the cigarette case, gets one out along with her lighter.

 

Dr. Hollman waves a hand and smiles. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” 

 

She gives what she knows is a wan smile— _comfortable!—_ and sticks her cigarette between her lips as she flicks at her lighter. The flame catches with the first try, doing nothing to betray her discomfort. But as she lights her cigarette out of the corner of her eye she sees his head dip, sees him put pen to paper, and freezes. 

 

_What is she doing wrong._

 

Carol places the case and lighter back in her bag, takes a drag and takes care to keep her fingers in contact with the cigarette as she holds it, ladylike, and exhales.

 

“I wouldn't use those words myself,” she says finally. She does’t deny it—she is here to agree with Dr. Hollman, and agree she will. If he says jump, she can only ask how high. Carol reaches for an ashtray on the coffee table in front of her, holding it in her free hand. But she has her own agenda, too. “I would call it an aberration, really,” she continues. 'Tendencies' has too much of a permanent sound to it for her, particularly written down for the courts to pore over and lawyers to bicker about. 

 

Dr. Hollman scratches some notes down, nodding, though he only makes a noncommittal noise. “Let’s start from the beginning,” he says, in a way that makes her wonder if he heard her and that wrenches the conversation back in the direction he deems fit. “Who is Abby?”

 

He must have whatever information Harge has given him. Carol rolls her cigarette to rid it of ash, keeps her demeanor friendly and open as he looks up from his notes to observe her.

 

“An old friend,” she answers truthfully. “I’ve known her since we were girls. We went to school together.”

 

“And was there anything untoward that she did with you, particularly as children?” The question could almost come across as concerned, but the following ones don’t. “Did she touch you?” he asks, and then, in rapid succession, “How did it make you feel?”

 

It’s been years since she’s choked on her own smoke, but she nearly does so now.

 

“ _Christ_ , no,” Carol says vehemently, voice scratching as she blinks back the sting of tears. She looks away, disgusted, and holds her cigarette up to her lips though she's not ready to take another drag. The shades on the windows are drawn, giving her very little to look at other than Dr. Hollman’s stare or the certificates on his wall. Is that what he thinks happened? That someone did something to her, something inherently _wrong_ , and now she’s a wreck, a pervert, poised to ruin her husband’s life and prey on her own daughter?

 

“The circumstances with Abby were a mistake on my part,” Carol admits, which is true in a way—the fling is again not something she regrets, but she shouldn’t have breathed a word of it to Harge. That much is clear now. 

 

Dr. Hollman writes something else down and Carol begins to worry. “Now, when did this thing with Abby happen?” he asks, and she places her cigarette in the ashtray, sets that down on the coffee table and sits up a little straighter. Best not to look fidgety.

 

“About five years ago now, and ended not very long after,” she stresses.

 

“Ah.”

 

She doesn’t dare glance at the clock that ticks away mutedly on the wall. She fields his questions, one after the other, with a smile, instead letting him notice after they’ve been talking for some time that he has another appointment after hers to keep. She’s on her third cigarette by the time he begins to shuffle the papers on his desk, places everything back in her file and and leaves it, face closed, on his desk as he stands. 

 

“It would be beneficial for you to see me at last once a week,” he offers, and Carol nods, gathering her things as he leads them to the door. He makes to hold it open, but before doing so, says, in a manner that makes it clear it’s less negotiable than their appointment times, “I also think it’d be in the best interest of everyone, especially you, if contact were broken off with Abby.” The idea, if he provides it to all his clients, must not be popular, because he adds, “If she’s your friend, she’ll understand.”

 

She’s in no position to argue.

 

“Of course," Carol says. To her own ears her voice sounds hollow, with all the sincerity of a sycophant, but he only smiles encouragingly as she adds, “Whatever it takes.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She has become paranoid. She hesitates to pick up the phone, fingertips brushing the receiver before yanking her hand back as if bitten and deciding against it. In all their years of marriage she had always felt as if she’d been a step behind Harge, turning left where he’d turned right, the two of them completely out of sync, innocent and bumbling—not what she’d strived for, true, but still just a relatively harmless inability to be on the same page. Apparently it was not only a feeling but reality, and an uglier one than she’d ever thought possible.

 

Thankfully, Abby knows her almost better than herself, and even without calling her around seven there’s the crunch of gravel announcing a car arriving in their driveway, a loud slam of the car door, and then after a moment, Abby’s confidant knock at the door. 

 

Carol rises from her seat on the couch, walks over briskly and opens the door. Abby, dear, wise Abby who knows vastly more than she does or ever will, doesn’t have to be told to come in quickly. They don’t linger in the dooway, and Abby closes and locks the door behind herself. Abby takes off her scarf, drapes it and her coat on the rack near the door, and Carol hears her speak as she drifts into the kitchen, Abby following.

 

“How’d it go at the shrink’s?”

 

“Horrid,” she admits. She hardly minds Abby asking. They’re close enough for such conversation to pass free and unjudged between them. And she’s in a strange mood, wanting nothing more than to forget the entire thing happened, yet plagued by her own memory, each sentence repeated over and over again. 

 

“Let me fix you a drink. Sit down.” She does as Abby tells her to and takes a seat at the kitchen table as Abby heads for the liquor cabinet, opens it, peers inside, and gets started. “Are you going to be alright?”

 

Before she had told Harge about what had passed between them, she had made her intentions to do so clear with Abby. It would have been careless and callous of her not to let Abby, the other guilty party, know. But the aftermath had been relatively painless. In all the time she’d known Harge, he and Abby had crossed paths a handful of times, usually Abby out the door as Harge had come home. She might as well have been a stranger to him. Carol imagines that if Abby had been a man, and a more familiar man, there would have been a drive to her home, pounding on the door, harsh words, a fistfight. But with Abby, Harge's expression had only gone sour at her admission, and his wounded pride and anger turned over time towards her in the form of guilt-inducing digs. 

 

Now though the circumstances are similar none of the possible outcome seem like they’ll be.

 

“I don’t know,” Carol answers truthfully, holding out her hand and letting Abby hand her her drink. “I took a shower when I got back, but I feel like I need another one.”

 

Abby takes a seat opposite her. “Jeez,” she breathes. “That bad?”

 

Carol nods, taking a sip. “Yes. But I need to do this.”

 

Abby holds up a hand. No need for rationalizations between them.

 

“Of course you do.” Her position of godmother, though they belong to no congregation in particular, is not just talk, and she’s earned her _Aunt_ _Abby_  diminuative despite a lack of blood relation. She’s been present when Harge hasn’t at all of Rindy’s milestones, learning to crawl, walk, talk; cleaned and wiped her way through more than her fair share of spit-up and snot and tears; and spoiled Rindy relentlessly, a sucker for that little smile just as much as she is. Abby understands as much as any of their other friends with children do, and she reaches out, pats her hand. “Just don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

 

It sounds so easy and certain when Abby says it. “I won’t,” Carol promises, before knocking back the rest of her drink.

 

Having had time to run down to the market and generally get the house in order again, she’s able to cobble together sandwiches for dinner while they move onto better topics of conversation. Abby recounts her latest date in great detail, the going-ons at the shop, and with dinner over they retire upstairs, Abby darting back downstairs only to get the tea once the kettle starts to whistle.

 

It’s in a comfortable silence, the two of them sipping tea, that Abby brings her up.

 

“Have you heard from Therese?”

 

She’s been so consumed with the appointment that Carol's momentarily forgotten about her—and the guilt comes back like a tidal wave.

 

“She’s tried to call,” she admits.

 

She’ll have to account for her actions one day or another, here or in hell—and most likely in hell, because Therese had said her name with such longing, and she’d hung up on her before either of them had been able to say more. It hadn’t been easy, but she imagines it had hurt Therese more than her because she hadn't tried to call again. Carol trails off, and can’t look at Abby. If she were to find her gaze hard, unforgiving, she’d break, and run to the phone like an addict. 

 

Abby's voice is studied, neutral. “She’ll be busy soon,” she says, perhaps allaying her guilt. “She’s starting at the Times, if I remember correctly.”

 

Carol feels a pride within her, that Therese is doing so well for herself—the Times! But the beam of headlights through the window, the potential for someone to be driving up to the house, cuts off her train of thought.

 

She curses the circumstances. Abby half-rises, looking out the window like a deer about to dart away. The sound and light ebb away, a mere coincidence that someone should turn around so close to her home, but Abby stays standing.

 

“I should go,” Abby admits slowly, and as much as Carol would like her not to she thinks of Fred and what he’d ask her to do, and can’t argue with the reasoning behind it. 

 

She nods, leaves her cup on the tray, and stands to walk Abby to the door.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She will be calm. She will be polite. She wants to be, and will be, deemed cured. 

 

In their appointments Dr. Hollman hasn’t lingered much on Abby. The length of time between then and now makes the details of the affair scarcer, and besides, the bare bones of it is all on paper already. He’d lingered only briefly on her own parents, her sister— _Is she like this, too? Oh. Married. Then how was your mother? Domineering?_ —finding them of little interest. 

 

They’ve picked through her life, gone over it with a fine toothed comb, and it’s been easy enough. School, college, marriage, a child. Hardly anything in her life varies from the norm. But now—

 

“When was the last time you had relations with your husband?"

 

It is not the sort of conversation she would even have with Abby, let alone another man. But Dr. Hollman says it without overt interest, and so it must work into his profile of her somehow. “February.” Carol watches as he makes an annotation, and clarifies with a wave of her hand, “Not this February, the previous one.”

 

An eyebrow rises. “Because of the proceeding divorce?” he offers.

 

“Yes,” she fudges easily. “It’s been quite stressful.”

 

“I see.” She’s spoken with him at length enough to know that despite the understanding words, the tone behind it is not a positive one. Dr. Hollman flips over his notepad to a new page, leans sideways and shuffles through the ever-present file on his desk. “And this, uh, Theresa.”

 

“Yes.” She doesn’t bother to correct him, the name another secret for her to keep to herself, unsullied.

 

“This was?”

 

“December,” Carol offers, and he nods.

 

“Thank you. Who initiated this encounter?”

 

She can hardly see of what importance that is, and answers slowly, “Well, I did. She was the only one free at the counter at the department store—”

 

“No, Mrs. Aird. Sexually.”

 

She does her best not to show how thoroughly the question has caught her off guard, how easily the meeting has gone from tedious and uncomfortable to grossly repugnant, but feels an unpleasant flush bring color to her cheeks. Surely she can’t have heard him correctly.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

Dr. Hollman frowns, and she knows that that cannot bode well for her. “Was it you or her?”

 

Shame blossoms hot in her chest—not at what she’d shared with Therese but that he sits there, watching her, pen in hand ready to write down whatever he finds necessary to linger and comment on, and has managed to insinuate that their chance meeting, so felicitous and beautiful, was nothing more than a crude sexual urge.

 

She’s no fool. It would be best to say that Therese did it, that Therese took advantage of her, that Therese was the cause of all this and oh, she’s learned her lesson, hasn’t she! But even in private, here in the doctor’s office or the lawyers’ firms, in papers and reports and motions that Therese will never read, she cannot bear to throw her so thoroughly and unfeelingly under the bus. 

 

Carol breathes in, swallows. “Me,” she admits, the truth. She had been the one to see Therese's interest and do nothing to stop it. “It was me.”

 

“Mhm.”

 

He writes something down, and she closes her eyes. _Rindy_ , she reminds herself. She imagines herself in her own apartment, with a room for her, the two of them eating dinner together—

 

“And with this Theresa. Who simulated the role of the man?”

 

 _Rindy_ , _Rindy_ , _Rindy_ , Carol repeats, a mantra to keep Dr. Hollman's words from taking the joy out of every meagre scrap of a memory that she holds onto, miserly, of their time together. She holds a hand up to her face, presses fingertips to her temple. They have twenty minutes still, and it leaves her with no room to escape the question.

 

“Is this really necessary?”

 

She can almost hear Abby's snappy retort that there was definitely no man involved. _The_ _dolt_ , Carol can practically hear her laugh. _Doesn’t_ _he_ _realize_ _that_ _that’s_ _why_ _she’s here?_  And it is true. He’s fundamentally misunderstood, and she doesn’t even know where to begin to rectify it. Even if she could put into words what she’d felt, it would take emotion that Carol doesn’t care to bare to him. There was only ever her and Therese.

 

Carol lowers her hand and he looks at her, entirely seriously, and tilts his fingertips together, holds them together tented under his chin. “Mrs. Aird, nothing could help me more than to know this. The course of treatment varies depending upon your predilection.”

 

And so she swallows a howl of rage and decides. If this is what it takes to see Rindy again, then so be it. _Now_ _or_ _never_. “Me,” she says again, collected once more to match the tone of his clinical questions.

 

If she thought she could stoop no lower, each session proves her wrong with almost sadistic pleasure.

 

“And did you enjoy it?”

 

He’s found something to sink his teeth into. The pen scribbles away. 

 

Carol thinks of that lunch at the little diner off on the side of a nameless road, of Therese asking her if there had been others, before her, and how she had told her that she would find her own man, probably, and sometime soon. How Therese had been hurt by that, visibly, but without understanding that she had had to push her away, to help her.

 

“No.”

 

The right lie, but one-word answers won’t get her far in convincing him. Was she not living proof of the awful mess that Therese could find herself in, a cautionary tale acted out directly in front of her? She'll have to work harder. 

 

“And there was no _pleasure_ gotten out of it?”

 

Rindy's name is a litany, one that Carol repeats so quickly and fervently in her mind that she wonders if Dr. Hollman can hear her thoughts. How much more can they ask of her?

 

Yet still the thought of Therese brings not pain or regret, but a quiet courage for her to draw on and, of course, a longing to see her that simply won’t go away. She could lecture with the condescending confidence of the older lover until she was blue in the face, but on the rightness of it all Therese had not budged, and really, even she's known all along that neither will she.

 

Carol finds suddenly that if she pretends Dr. Hollman is speaking about Harge, it’s easier to lie, and now especially to lie in earnest. “No,” she says, and even to her it sounds believable, a hint of a laugh of relief following. “Never.” _Never_ , _with_ _Harge_. “I don’t know why I ever thought I could.”

 

“Good, good.” Dr. Hollman nods, writes for what seems like minutes as he murmurs. “It’s the natural order of things, for a man and a woman to be together," he says. "You must have known that, too, if it felt wrong. Even the homosexuals who say it’s natural, well—I don’t know who they think they’re fooling, because deep down they know it isn’t.” He looks at her and smiles, the sincerity in it making her skin crawl. “I do believe we’re getting somewhere, Mrs. Aird.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Time drags, and the eighth approaches tortuously slow. With not much available to occupy her, it’s worse. But eventually, the day comes.

 

Carol bathes and dresses and readies herself, spends the morning waiting, and finally just before one o'clock is able to leave. She’ll be right on time, even early, but not unduly so.

 

She keeps an eye on her speed as she drives, unwilling to let something as mundane as a ticket hold her up, and makes it to Harge’s parents’ house in good time. 

 

Alice and Gordon's home is even bigger and emptier than their own, and driving up to it she parks in the immense gravel driveway, behind Harge. Sparing a glance at the door to make certain that no one is watching, she sits up, leans forward and inspects her reflection in the rear view mirror. She looks fine, unremarkable. Around his mother, it’s a good thing. Anything else—too bright of a shade of lipstick, too harsh of an arch to her eyebrow, too colorful of a scarf—would raise disapproving comments. 

 

But even with all of her effort, she’s foiled.

 

Carol walks up to the door, rings the bell, and after a moment is greeted by Harge.

 

“Carol,” he says warmly, but she makes no motion to move to hug or kiss him, only nods cordially, and so jilted he steps aside. She walks in, takes off her coat and lets Harge put it away. She steps out of the foyer, looking around—Rindy is not the sort to shriek and run through the house, but it’s conspicuously quiet. She nearly startles at the feel of Harge’s hand coming to rest on the small of her back, guiding her firmly toward the dining room. “Come in. We were just about to sit down.”

 

A proposition is a proposition, nothing more than business. “Where’s Rindy?” she asks, polite but to the point before they’ve gone very far. 

 

They stall in the hallway and Harge shrugs, chuckles, that good-old-boy smile on his face. “Arthur and Harriet stopped by. They hadn’t seen her in a while, wanted to take her out for ice cream.”

 

Carol feels something within herself crumple, and smiles gamely. She hasn’t seen Rindy in almost a month, now. How could anyone else's, how could one of his friends' need to see her top hers?

 

“And what time do you expect they’ll be back?”

 

“Oh, around four, I suppose.”

 

At that Carol drops the subject, unwilling to show how desperately she needs to see her daughter, and sweeps annoyed into the dinning room, leaving Harge holding empty air.

 

Dinner is a drag, like it always is, though she gets a dark satisfaction out of correcting Alice on the nature of her visits with Dr. Hollman when the conversation turns briefly to her. But all in all it consists of Gordon’s numerous business deals and Harge’s dry and long-winded stories about clients, and Alice’s attempts to have her come over for bridge on Thursday. That does not come from a place of kindness, but an attempt to have her conform and stop embarrassing them all.

 

It seems her life is to be spent waiting, an eye on the clock, forever counting down. She didn't go into this a nervous wreck, but wouldn't be surprised if she got out of it as one. They’ve made it more than midway through the meal when a car honks suddenly from nearby.

 

Carol stands abruptly, placing her fork down on her plate with a clatter as she darts away from the help that tries to maneuver her chair out of her way and from Harge who stands and makes to walk after her. 

 

She throws open the door, rushes onto the step, and sees that Harriet, perhaps not expecting her to still be present, has put Rindy down.

 

“My precious girl,” she says, and at the sound of her voice Rindy turns, looks up, a smile lighting up her face as she holds her arms up expectantly. Carol very nearly runs over, reaches down, picks her up with a twirl and holds her so close and tight that she’s afraid Rindy will eventually yelp, finding it too much. But she only gets arms around her neck holding her just as tightly, a laugh from her daughter, as if it’s all a game of hide and seek and she’s finally decided to show herself. 

 

“Look how you’ve grown,” Carol marvels bittersweet, finally pulling back so that she can look at Rindy.

 

There is nothing except her and Rindy as she heads back inside the house, as she passes Harge and his family in the entryway and she heads for the dinning room. 

 

They really have gone out for ice cream and Rindy wants nothing of their lunch that Carol offers her, but she can tempt her with a slice of cake. And so with Harge finishing his meal in quiet anger at the table, she sits on the couch, Rindy in her lap.

 

“Haven’t you got somewhere to be?” Alice asks quite bluntly from the table, the cup of tea in her hand untouched. It’s a terribly unsubtle way to urge her to leave, but one that Carol can extort. Even at that, her husband, Gordon, looks at her, frowning, and Carol minds her manners, reminding them of theirs. They can no more kick her out sooner than she'd like to leave than they can rationalize manhandling her out the door.  

 

“Oh, no,” Carol explains winningly, looking back at Alice with a smile. “When Harge invited me over, I cleared my schedule for the day." She drops a kiss to Rindy's head, reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ears. "Dinner with family is so important, don’t you agree?”

 

She will never get Rindy back, and her anger, so thoroughly beaten back since the moment she’d realized the tapes were forever out of her reach, returns. The visit is clearly unintentional, despite what Harge had promised her.

 

As they finish tea and dessert and she watches Rindy eat her cake, where before Harge had drawn out dinner, had asked her to come out with him after and mentioned a party at Cy's—with Rindy’s arrival now he is flustered, finishing his drink and drumming his fingers on the table audibly, eager to have her leave now that her attention is so blatantly and thoroughly directed away from him.

 

Carol understands that that is to be the norm now, that for as long as she concedes, does not pursue the divorce, and that for after that as long as they keep up their sham of a marriage Rindy will be both carrot and stick. How many more events, more lifetimes, will she be tricked into attending with Harge only at the end of the night for Rindy to be ever-so-coincidently at a sleepover or secreted away at her grandparents’? And if anything were to be pursued, there are the tapes, her own personal sword hanging above her by only a hair.

 

Sitting on the settee and holding Rindy, the understanding dawns with a cold clarity that floods through her. He is cruel, cruel, _cruel_ to use Rindy so. And the visit was not even the real one, might never be real ones. As of now, it's only the promise of them, which he can give or take with ease, fickle as the wind, and she's been hopeful enough to fall for it. 

 

Rindy turns in her lap, looks up and speaks, holding the fork with a bite of cake on it, and with a smile that is only for Rindy Carol nods, opens her mouth to let Rindy carefully feed her. The stolen afternoon with her is a gift to be treasured, but still no time at all for her to bask in Rindy’s presence compared to the countless days she's spent missing her.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She can likely never have both. That much is clear now. She’ll spend every last penny on Fred’s retainer because she has to _try_ , but with the issue of custody seemingly resting on her unacceptable failure as a wife and the mercy of a judge, she’s probably lost Rindy one way or the other. But if it’s to be so then she'll be damned if she loses Therese as well.

 

Carol makes her was through the familiar hallway, into the lobby, nods a greeting at Martha, and waits for her appointment. As she sits smoking, she wonders—will Therese take her back? She’d tried to call, but it feels like so long ago. She feels her stomach lurch. It’s presumptuous for her to even think Therese would even be available to do so, let alone want to. Perhaps she's already found another girl, someone young and gay and easy to be with. 

 

But the possibility of it gives her strength, particularly as Dr. Hollman appears. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Aird," he says convivially, and looks at his watch. "Busy morning, I presume?”

 

"Yes, quite busy." She prefers to take her appointments with him in the morning, where she can spend the day doing other things to forget it. As they enter his office she settles into her customary seat and he in his, and lets him talk about something or other, goes over her progress. The earlier appointment with Fred and Harge and Jerry has her still feeling like she’s pulled taut, a quickly-fraying bowstring, and as liable to snap again. 

 

It’s when Dr. Hollman goes quiet, when he finally seems to notice that she’s miles away, that Carol asks, “You're familiar with the theory behind Skinner boxes, aren't you?”

 

“Of course,” he replies, looking up at her curiously—oh, he didn’t expect that. She’s no fool. “It's a bit off topic, though,” he says, with the tone of a parent to a child. “If we could please steer back towards the incident in Waterloo—”

 

“Such a fascinating topic for you, isn't it?” Carol says sharply, unable to keep the distaste from her voice. “But about the boxes.” She'd taken the usual introductory courses in college, though it hadn't been something she had ever pursued beyond that. “If the rat pressed a lever, it would receive food.”

 

“Yes,” Dr. Hollman answers warily, and she nods, gathers her thoughts and continues. 

 

“To put it quite plainly, Dr. Hollman, the lever is these appointments. My reward—the food in this scenario, if you will—is the promise of visitation with my daughter." She continues before he can interrupt, unclenches fists she doesn't remember clenching and splays her fingers against her knees. "Now, you do remember what happened when the rats pressed and pressed and pressed some more, yet the food was withheld?”

 

He looks perturbed now, realization on his face that she is not simply stalling but speaking with some sort of purpose that is out of his ability to control. “They stopped pressing the lever,” he answers. “But Mrs. Aird, may I ask where you're going with this? It’s really not relevant—”

 

“But it is,” Carol cuts in, and she begins to gather her things, grabs her cigarette case off the couch next to her and drops it in her purse, snaps it shut, and slips it over her arm. “Because there’s only one rat naive enough here to think I'm going to keep pressing that lever and get nothing out of it and that rat's name is Harge,” she says, finally standing. She manages a polite smile, turns and heads for the door. “I’ll be stopping by with Martha outside to take care of any further appointments I'm down for. I'll clear those up for you so you can torture some other poor soul, God help them.”

 

Carol hears him push back his chair, looks back over her shoulder and sees Dr. Hollman standing at his desk. Harge’s outbursts, loud and sometimes physical, had been upsetting. But the way Dr. Hollman looks at her, with quiet authority in his unassailable ability to derail her life, is unsettling in another manner entirely. 

 

“I'm sure you know I am going to have to include this in my upcoming report." He motions at the couch and sounds smug, as if dealing with a tantrum he's defused many times before. Carol wonders how many others it's worked on, and feels deeply sorry for them. “If you sit down right now, we can pretend this conversation never happened.”

 

Pity. She’d been doing so well on them, too. It’s damning evidence, sure, but with or without Dr. Hollman’s questionably professional opinion, she’ll never be able to undo what she's done. 

 

Carol only laughs as she opens the door and walks away.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She has to meet John by eleven, and so Carol wears something nice enough to do so but not so formal as to seem out of place at dinner later. With yet another thing to do today, there won't be time to dash back home and change.

 

She readies her things, takes another glance in the mirror, and leaving her purse on the hall table she walks back up the stairs and to the study, and grabs the only stationary available, the name and address at the top that of a complete stranger. 

 

She makes it downtown on time, liking this new freedom of hers, and walks into the lobby. In due time John comes out, greets her with a smile as he holds out his hand, and she takes it. 

 

“Carol, how good to see you.” 

 

He’s an acquaintance of Harge’s—she hardly has her own anymore, she’s realized, outside of Abby—but one forged through business dealings. Distant enough not to know of their problems or even likely to care if he were to know, but savvy enough to understand that she knows what she’s talking about, even years out of practice, and take her on as a buyer.

 

“Likewise,” Carol says with a smile, and means it. They retire to his office for privacy, though really they have only to tie up loose ends. Over dinner last Thursday he had pitched the idea to her, and she had had to take all of two days to consider it.

 

“Coffee?” he offers as he settles at his desk, and she holds a hand up, declining.

 

“No, thank you. I’ve got a few other things to do after this.” 

 

He reaches into his desk and comes up with a packet of cigarettes, offering her one. Again, she declines, and with a nod from her he selects one for himself, lights it and begins to smoke. “The usual hours?” John confirms. “Monday to Friday, nine to five?”

 

Few other things would please her more, and Carol nods graciously. “Perfect. I’m looking forward to it, John.”

 

They make small talk for a few more minutes before John's got the papers ready, and she reads over them, content with the compensation and commission, and signs.

 

For the first time in years she’s got a job. The weight of it, the responsibility, has Carol smiling again for a moment, almost as eager as a girl going back to school after summer as she says goodbye to him, walks out and takes the elevator back down to the lobby. She makes her way outside and stalls on the sidewalk, people sidestepping her as they continue on their way. Her car is parked just a few feet away, but she knows the meter is still good for another thirty minutes and so she takes a walk, restlessly searching.

 

It hardly seems like something to be done hurried, careless, scrawled on the dashboard. She finds a diner not far away and pushes open the door. The restaurant seems to be at a lull, because no one bats an eye at her entrance. She’s free to pick a table and choses one near a big window, slides into the booth and sets her purse down beside her. 

 

The Times, Abby had mentioned. She can only imagine how well Therese is doing. It suites her, the idea, and Carol couldn't be more happy for her. What a change from Frankenberg's! She wonders who Therese has met, what she’s learned, whether she looks any different, still lives in that place, what has changed and what has not. And, selfishly, Carol wonders if Therese still thinks of her. 

 

A waitress stops at her table, cheerful as she interrupts her, and Carol smiles back, orders a pot of coffee and nothing else at the moment— _yes_ , _she’s_ _sure_ , _thank_ _you_. 

 

Carol thinks of the apartment on Madison Avenue awaiting her, nearly ready to be moved into, this weekend if possible. She’d put down her deposit, gotten the keys just yesterday to the small but still welcoming place. It’s got more rooms than she needs, walls white, a blank page waiting to be written upon. 

 

Will Therese say yes? But Carol almost scoffs at herself, getting so far ahead. Surely they will be unable to pick up as they had left off in Waterloo months ago, won't they? Will Therese even agree to see her? The waitress walks by, coffee is placed on the table, following by a cup and the directions to flag her down if she wants anything else, and Carol nods absently.

 

Regardless, she owes Therese what's in her to try. She has only to glance out the window momentarily to collect her scattered, hopeful thoughts before she pulls out the stationary and a pen, settles down, and begins to write. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
